Till We Are Home

My wife told me the other day that she watched an interview with twenty one pilots…yep, we’re fans…who talked about how they work within their music the issues or problems they faced personally, (I think) with the hope that perhaps as they do, it helps them to resolve those issues. But, as it turned out after years of making music they still are dealing with some of those same problems, it hadn’t necessarily gotten better but they learned to just live with a limp.

If you’ve ever listened to their songs, tracked with their albums, you’ll hear them working through some of these. I love their songwriting and creativity and how they can weave together images through words and melodies to convey deep thinking. But this sounded depressing…like they’ve just given up. 

I react and want to just say, “no, Joseph, you’re wrong…the Lord redeems and makes everything right again…He’ll make everything ok and you’ll feel just fine…just believe!”

But, I don’t think that’s honest. Why? Well, you see, (I don’t know about you, but at least in my walk with the Lord) there’s a feeling of guilt as a Christian that you must stand on the positive side and say everything is rosy, everything is good again even after bouts of suffering (whatever that suffering may be). 

Yes, the Lord redeems. And, yes, He turns all things good for those who love Him, as His Word says. 

But, that doesn’t mean your little girl comes back. That doesn’t mean you will overcome the disease. That doesn’t mean your boss will hire you again. Or that your name will be cleared. That money will automatically appear in great sums in your bank account.

Will He redeem these things? Yes. Will He use them for His glory and our good? Yes. 

But I would agree with Tyler and say that we can’t look to fix everything. We can’t look to have it restored or even my own emotions and way of life restored…I may end up way different than before, not handling situations like I used to, but being different in the end.

Yet who is to say that isn’t redemption? Who is to say that I can’t be changed and transformed even in the midst of walking through recovery and handling things differently now? Who is to say that this limp I now carry with me is not the Lord’s will? 

I will learn to live with this limp. Jacob did, didn’t he? Remember when he wrestled with God? He walked away from that encounter with a limp for the rest of his life. 

But even with that limp, what is my response to be, nonetheless? I think it should be like the psalmist who said, 

“Why are you cast down, O my soul,

    and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

    my salvation and my God.”

Psalm 42:5

(and verse 11 and then again in 43:5…emphasis mine)

Though I walk with this limp, I can have hope in Him again…I will again praise Him. Why? Because He is not done with me. It’s ok that I have a limp…one Day, I won’t, but I wait for that trumpet blast to realize that.

Until then, I walk with a limp of missing my little girl. Yet my hope is in the Lord…I will and do praise Him again. And until that trumpet sounds, this limp I will keep learning to walk with.

Till we are home…